Words by Webb

As a writer, I’m constantly on the lookout for story ideas(both fiction and nonfiction). One of the most unlikely places I found the idea for an article was in the junk mail that comes home from my kids’ schools each Friday in their blue folder. An article that made it to a national market! So I thought it would be great to find out where Roy Peter Clark finds his ideas. I’ll also be giving away a copy of his book HELP! for Writers: 210 Solutions to Problems Every Writer Faces.

Five oddest places (real, not virtual) where I’ve found story ideas

Collectibles store: While looking through a stack of Life magazines, I came across the 1945 cover photo of a young woman described as “Florida’s Prettiest Girl.” Inside I learned that she was a high school girl from St. Petersburg, Florida, my hometown. I found her living in retirement in Seattle. The Life gig turned out to be the only modeling experience of her life. A much more significant achievement, she thought, was teaching American literature at LSU.

Parent’s crawl space: You never know what you’ll find in a crawl space, or what might reach out and grab you. Usually, folks store things in crawl spaces they no longer need but do not want to throw away. With time, they are forgotten. So imagine my joy when I went spelunking in my parents’ crawl space and put my hand on a cardboard box that turned out to be a treasure chest of children’s books. My formative library. I have written a dozen essays inspired by that collection.

An elevator in Copenhagen: I found myself not long ago in a small hotel elevator in Denmark with a beautiful young woman. Elevator etiquette demanded that I look down when I noticed she was wearing a pair of familiar looking athletic shoes. “You know,” I said to her, “I wore a pair of those back in 1965.” The shoes were Converse All-Star sneakers, old school basketball shoes, “Chucks,” named after their inventor Chuck Taylor. Back in the day, the style was low and black, like the Boston Celtics wore. Hers were sassy and stylish, an orange plaid. She explained to me that these were all the rage in Europe. A low tech obsolete basketball shoe had found a new life on the feet of stylish men and women, boys and girls, the world over.

In my left hand: For many years, I wore my grandmother’s wedding ring. Over the course of 25 years or so, I began to realize that not many men – gay or straight – wore their granny’s jewelry. I began to contemplate what was behind that gold band, and I came to realize that it symbolized a special heritage that came to me through my grandmother. Although I was raised in a Catholic family and educated in Catholic schools, I would discover that my grandma, born Sarah Schoengold, was Jewish. My explorations led to the creation of “Sadie’s Ring,” a serial narrative published in several newspapers, including the Miami Herald.

On the golf course: I’m not a camping and hiking kind of guy. In fact, my idea of roughing it is spending the night in a motel. But in seven years of golf in Florida, I’ve seen some astonishing encounters between hackers and nature. I’ve seen alligators rest near my wayward golf ball; a crow pick up a ball from the fairway and flying it into a tree for safekeeping; an osprey dropping a good sized fish on the seventh green. But nothing comes close to a crafty raccoon who does business at the Vinoy Golf Club. Not only did the critter steal my friend’s cheese crackers from his golf cart, he stole his watch!

Help! for Writers: 210 Solutions to Problems Every Writer Faces

Author: Roy Peter Clark

Hardcover: 304 pages (also available in Kindle format)

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (September 21, 2011)

Synposis:

One of America’s most influential writing teachers offers 210 solutions to the biggest problems writers face.

The craft of writing offers countless potential problems: The story is too long; the story’s too short; revising presents a huge hurdle; writer’s block is rearing its ugly head. In Help! For Writers, Roy Peter Clark presents an “owner’s manual” for writers, outlining the seven steps of the writing process, and addressing the 210 most urgent problems that writers face. In his trademark engaging and entertaining style, Clark offers 10 short solutions to each problem.

Out of ideas?

Read posters, billboards, and graffiti.

Can’t bear to edit yourself?

Watch the deleted scenes feature of a DVD, and ask yourself why those scenes were left on the cutting-room floor.

Help! For Writers offers 210 strategies to guide writers to success.

Review:

I knew writers had a lot of problem but finally Clark has narrowed it down for me…210. Now if I could just master these 210 problems it should be smooth sailing for me. Pulitzer Prize, here I come. Before I start, I must confess I’m going through some crazy times in my non-writing life so I may not have given HELP! my best reading. Personal stuff kept cropping up between paragraphs. Because of that it felt like it took me FOREVER to read this book–but that was me, not the writing or the subject. Sorry, Roy.

We’re all familiar with the problems HELP! addresses: writer’s block, organization, interviewing, all the standards. This book isn’t about Clark revealing any ground-shaking new problems but in how he suggests we deal with those problems we all know only too well. You may say to yourself, “Oh I know how to deal with THAT problem.” And maybe you do. But even problem solving can fall into a rut. And when you fall into a rut things just don’t work like they used to work. HELP! presents new ways of looking at problems and new ways of solving them. Many times during the reading I found myself saying, “I would never have done that” about a suggestions solution. Somewhere in those 210 problems you’ll find many that you’re struggling with and often, new ways of looking at the problems, ways that may solve the problem for you.

I loved the chapter titles for HELP!.

• My middles sag.
• I can’t stop procrastinating.
• I can’t think of anything to write.

I’m giving away a copy of HELP!. All you have to do is be a follower and tell us the weirdest place you’ve ever found a story idea by Sept. 29. Alternately, tell us about the weirdest story (fiction or nonfiction) you’ve ever read. Can you tell I’m in a weird mood? Winner will be announced on Sept. 30. US addresses only.

Michael Reilly earned a bachelor’s degree in history(my favorite subject!) from Yale University and a master’s degree in journalism(My favorite way to pay the bills!) from Columbia University. He is founder and chief executive officer of FitDivs Inc, a company that promotes and rewards healthy living. Michael resides with his wife and four children in Charlottesville, VA. Somehow, in the midst of all that, Michael found the time to write his debut novel Fresh Heir and is stopping by Words by Webb to visit with a guest post and giveaway today.

The Toughest Job On Earth

Parents stink. I mean that literally. For anyone who has children still at home you know how difficult it can sometimes be to squeeze in a shower. I was reminded of this on Labor Day, a rainy mess with the kids stuck mostly indoors. I had hoped to shower by 8am. The fact that I got one at all, by 2pm, was a minor miracle, aided by the fact that the kids were indoors and it wasn’t a typical day off when we were running all over town to and from activities, which usually prohibits showers altogether. Let me repeat: parents stink. I suppose this might apply to older parents too, empty nesters, who have learned to no longer care about stinking.

My point in actually saying all this is…well, I’ve quite forgotten because I have been distracted by my kids and I forgot what the heck I was going to say. Which does lead me to say that parenting is just tough stuff. I am reminded of something given to me by a friend all those years ago when I first became a parent. It was a “parent job description” akin to what you might find distributed by companies in the days when they actually hired people. This parent job description is very long, mind you, but here is the top part under the “Job Description” itself: Long term, team players needed, for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities. Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

The next paragraph proceeds to discuss responsibilities and it’s really long, so I will assume you know the routine. My favorite is the one that says: Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily (as in “you stink!!”) until someone needs $10…or a new iPod.

The remainder of the job description goes on to explain how the possibility for advancement in this position is virtually nil, as is the requirement for previous experience…it’s like one of those “learn-as-you-go” situations. Best of all, you don’t get paid for this job, you pay them!

All this sounds like a job most of us would avoid like the plague…if we only knew. Ah, if we only knew. But we don’t and frankly, I’m glad. Because in the end, there is no job on earth that delivers as much reward and opportunity for personal growth.

It’s why I wrote a book about parenting. My recently released novel, Fresh Heir, is literary fiction…part satire, part serious commentary on the challenges of parenting in the modern world. In particular, the story is about a gifted 12-year-old, and his obsessive father who is determined to compensate for his own lack of success in life by pushing his son beyond his limits. I had been attempting to publish my first novel for many years, trying historical fiction in my previous efforts because I love history. But it was the topic of parenting that set my writing passions on fire. I knew this was what I wanted to write about, exploring the serious challenges we face everyday within the scope of a light-hearted, humorous tale. (No rape scenes, or vampires necessary.)

In the end, the message I try to convey in Fresh Heir is that our kids often have as much to teach us as we have to teach them. Like I said: opportunity for personal growth. Even if that means at the expense of personal hygiene.

Which takes me back to Labor Day. I like to joke that once Labor Day hits, you might as well skip right to Christmas the next week, because that’s how fast it comes. I believe this is a function of the craziness that kids can bring upon us from their school projects to their sporting events to their general demands on our time. It teaches you to appreciate every day like Christmas and its pleasure of giving and receiving gifts. The greatest gift we have is the present moment with our kids, the here and now, and that includes all the challenges, all the frustrations and all the heartbreaks, along with the triumphs . If don’t practice living in the present, it will be gone before we have one single moment to enjoy it. And that really stinks.

Fresh Heir

Author: Michael Reilly

Paperback: 260 pages (also available in Kindle format)

Publisher: Fresh Heir (May 13, 2011)

Synposis:

Thanks to the Fresh Heir website for this synopisis.

Jamie Shoop is a twelve-year-old who has been labeled highly gifted. Good news, right? Except with it comes a cross-county car trip…with his ultra-obsessed dad…his annoying little sister…and a wacky educational consultant his dad has hired. Jamie could suggest better ways to spend his summer, and to live his life, if only someone would listen.

But his dad, Doug, can’t hear above the loud voices demanding nothing but the best for his son. Doug will do anything to give Jamie the leg up he needs to compete in a vicious world and get into an Ivy League school.

Michael Reilly’s hysterical road-trip in search of achievement is a wide-eyed satire about the pressures of modern parenthood. As they set out on the trip to San Francisco, where Jamie will attend a summer program for gifted youth, Doug’s enthusiasm and hyperkinetic desire to enrich Jamie at every turn leads to hilarious complications and enlightening predicaments.

A riotous portrayal of a father desperate to have the promise of his youth fulfilled through the life of his son, Doug’s journey is not unlike that of many parents in modern-day America. With good grades, extracurricular activities, and solid SATs no longer the benchmark for entrance into top colleges, the pressure and stress of giving children the best opportunities for success can often lead to misplaced motivations.

Accurately depicting the push-pull of parenthood and childhood and the need for adults to understand the voices of their children, Fresh Heir is a laugh-out-loud journey of self-discovery.

Review:

Anyone with a US address and who follows Words by Webb can enter to win a copy of Fresh Heir. Just leave a comment(and your email address) by September 26. The winner will be announced on September 27.